The most obvious benefit of being immortal is that you can never die or be killed (unless you are a Highlander, in which case a good beheading will do the trick). For a scientist, however, the benefits of immortality are many and not the sorts of things that most people would think about. With infinite time, you could observe rare cosmic phenomena that might occur only once every five generations. You’d have time to travel the world and explore all the places that humanity has seemingly ignored, and as an added bonus, you’d be immune to all those arbitrarily deadly flora, fauna, and tropical diseases. There would be infinite time for everything, and that includes all the experiments I’ve wanted to run on alternate metagames. What is an "alternate metagame," you ask? It’s simple. Imagine that somehow, somewhere 
along the line, a specific card never existed. Then try to predict how the current top decks would shift as a result. This is useful for those of us who need to build our decks on a budget. It’s also an excellent way to figure out exactly how each card fits into the decks you see in the Shonen Jump Championship coverage. Removing cards piece by piece and seeing how the results impact the decks shows you the logic behind how the deck is constructed. It’s basically reverse engineering, and it also opens your eyes to a number of cards that you might not consider running otherwise.
Right now, Dark Armed Return is the most popular and successful deck in the format. The deck’s incredible ability to clear the field and then swarm for a win is a major threat in every stage of the game, but what would happen if Dark Armed Dragon was removed from the equation? If you think about it, it isn’t really such an uncommon occurrence. People play Dark Return without Dark Armed Dragon all the time, usually out of necessity rather than by choice. Obviously, you play as many Dragons as you’ve got, but if you’re like me and don’t have any, what are your options? Are there any advantages afforded to the player without Dark Armed Dragon? As strange and non-intuitive as it may seem, the answer is yes. What exactly does Dark Armed Dragon do for you? It’s a free 2800 ATK body that can serve the purpose of both Jinzo and Darklord Zerato any time you can manipulate your graveyard to have exactly three Dark monsters in it. If the card were to suddenly stop existing, I’d be looking for ways to either replace the extra summon potential or increase the consistency with which I can access the effects of Darklord Zerato and Jinzo. I’d also want to take advantage of the fact that I would no longer have to care how many Dark monsters make their way to the graveyard. In fact, that’s advantage number one right there.
If I want to play Dark Return without Dark Armed Dragon, my best bet in terms of a big, easy-to-summon monster that can clear out opposing cards is Dark Nephthys. Unlike Dark Armed Dragon, the special summon effect of Nephthys can be activated any time you have at least three Dark monsters in your graveyard. There’s a world of difference between "exactly three" and "at least three," and playing with Dark Nephthys for a while is the best way to get an appreciation for exactly how tough it is to stay at three and only three Dark monsters in the graveyard. You don’t need any fancy graveyard manipulation through cards like Necro Gardna, so you can focus the deck entirely toward laying down your win condition. Even better, Dark Nephthys turns Return from the Different Dimension into a card that you don’t need to feel bad about playing at any point during the game. Similar to its usage with Cyber Valley as a mid-game draw engine, smart play with Nephthys and Return can lead to enough fast damage to keep an opponent from playing Dimension Fusion, letting you steal the game. In addition, running three copies of Dark Nephthys on top of an extra Jinzo and an extra Destiny Hero - Dasher vastly increases the 
value of Dasher to well above the level of decks running Dark Armed Dragon. Dropping Dark Nephthys onto the field thanks to Dasher is pretty great, as is dropping Jinzo, and thanks to the higher number of monsters you can hit with Dasher, you can bet that Dasher will often be the first monster you want to send to the graveyard with Dark Grepher.
Dark Grepher has become a key component in the latest wave of Dark Return decks, even taking precedence over the incredibly popular Armageddon Knight. The reasons for this are simple. Like Armageddon Knight, Grepher can be searched out by Reinforcement of the Army. It’s bigger than the Armageddon Knight, but most importantly, Grepher has two amazing effects that let you manipulate all the cards at your disposal to create an optimal play for the situation. If you need to reserve your normal summon for something like Cyber Valley, Grepher allows you the special summon of a sizable body that also puts a level 5 or higher Dark monster into the graveyard. An excellent choice for this is Destiny Hero - Malicious, as he frequently allows you to get another body on to the field that you can use to pay the cost of Crush Card Virus or remove along with Cyber Valley to draw more cards. In standard Dark Return decks, Grepher’s most valuable asset is the ability to load the graveyard with exactly three Dark monsters on the first turn of the game, allowing for incredibly quick summons of Dark Armed Dragon. While the "exactly three" issue isn’t a problem with this deck, Grepher still allows you to get cards into the graveyard at lightning speed, cards which you can then remove for Dark Nephthys and Strike Ninja, or fetch back to the field with Monster Reborn. In fact, Grepher pitching either Dark Magician of Chaos or Destiny Hero - Disk Commander to the graveyard to send the other there with Monster Reborn in hand is nothing short of brutal. Finally, Grepher can be used to load extra copies of Dasher into the graveyard, improving the quality of your draws from there on out.
The impact of Crush Card Virus after its mass release has yet to be fully observed, but there’s no reason to believe that there can be an outcome other than Virus becoming even more of a dominant force on the Shonen Jump Championship circuit. Games are often won and lost by how fast a Dark Return deck can find its Virus, as evidenced by the finals at Shonen Jump Championship Columbus. As Matt Peddle pointed out in his article on Erin Diaz’s nasty combo deck, Crush Card Virus was the one and only card available to Jerry Wang that gave him a chance in the match. If you’re going to play in a major event with any deck that runs a fair amount of valid tributes for the Virus, you owe it to yourself to get a copy of this card. You can play without Dark Armed Dragon. That’s fine. In fact, there are even benefits to a Dark Return build without the Dragon as I’ve demonstrated above. There is no good reason to not run Crush Card Virus. If you don’t have one and can’t get one, then I can only recommend playing a different deck. Counter Fairy is a great choice and getting better by the day. Gladiator Beasts are the same, and as you’ll see in less than a week, there will be yet another new deck arriving on the tournament scene in about a month.
In the end, what have we learned from looking at Dark Return without Dark Armed Dragon? I’d argue that we’ve learned that it would still be alive and kicking and winning Jumps without its namesake card. You can still draw most if not all of your deck in one turn, and you can still dump five monsters with brutal and debilitating effects to your field at a moment’s notice. You still have easy access to Crush Card Virus, which when resolved successfully is often enough to seal a victory without even taking into account the three turn’s worth of draws you get to see and destroy. What we learn here is that you can successfully play Dark Return without needing to pry Dark Armed Dragon cards from the closed mitts of the speculators and secondary market dealers. Would you want to? Probably not, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one day soon we see a Dark Return deck achieve a Day 2 finish without any copies of the trademark monster associated with it.
Next week begins our previews of Light of Destruction, so until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!
—Jerome McHale
NEXT WEEK: If I told you, that would be telling.